


On the Eve of Death

by Hexenwerk



Category: Charmed (TV 1998)
Genre: Gen, crossposted from FFN and Charmed Café
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 11:09:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16262984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hexenwerk/pseuds/Hexenwerk
Summary: Prue and the Angel of Death meet once more during her life.





	On the Eve of Death

The bench creaked with every swing as Prue idly pushing the toe of her shoe against the ground to keep up its momentum. She could hear the drone of and see the insects shimmering in the summer sunlight as they darted throughout the long grass. The buzzing background noise silenced her usually active brain and let her reflect in a stream of consciousness in which she rarely allowed herself to indulge.

When was the last time she’d been here? Two years ago? Had it really been so long since she'd come to this place, the one she’d shared with Andy? Prue could’ve sworn that she’d meant to come earlier, to pay honor to her memories of her first love. Why hadn’t she? The guilt of his death? It had been his choice to die for her, but still. If she had just . . . just taken the risk to make time turn back once more, or even not gotten him involved in her life at all.

Was it just because it’d feel wrong without him there, and that was why she’d put off coming to their bench since his death? Or maybe she’d just been too busy? Witchcraft was a full-time gig, and that was without the added burdens of a job, housekeeping (of which there was a lot, no thanks to demons), and bonding that went into maintaining her sisterly relationships. When had everything else fallen wayside to her Charmed life? For the life of her, Prue couldn’t even remember the last time she’d seen any of her friends. Did she even still have friends?

. . . Did crime scenes with Darryl count?

Prue sighed, hanging her head. The day was too nice to spend worrying about things that there was no helping. It was a tad too hot, but the mottled shade of the tree was cool as it rippled with the leaves in the breeze, which when combined with the verdant scent of the humidity lifting off of the plants gave her surroundings the feel of a perfect summer day, a snapshot for posterity.

She watched her foot rock the bench and felt oddly detached from it, as if she had nothing to do with it even though it was moving. Her shoe was getting scraped up and covered in dust, but she couldn’t even bring herself to care.

Over her fell a dark, cold shadow. The grass and daisies at her feet wilted at its touch as bugs fled into the warmer sunlight beyond.

“You’re going to die soon,” a voice said from behind her.

“I know,” Prue heard herself say.

He made no sound as he moved, a silent thing in a world of noise. Placing one hand on the bench to still it, Death took his seat beside Prue.

“You’re not surprised,” Death remarked, gazing at her downturned face as if she were a mystery he sought to divine. Prue let out a snort.

“I can read. If I had realized the spell’s wording earlier, what I was beseeching of you, I probably . . .” she trailed off.

“Probably, what? Not said it? Not asked magic to bring me to you before your time?” Death pressed, his hand coming to clamp down on top of one of Prue’s own. Prue gasped, almost jumping out of her skin, raising her face to meet his stare for the first time since he joined her. Though it was difficult to see through the shadows that his heavy brow cast, his eyes were entreating her, his grip a prayer. She had to look away.

“No, I would have still. I couldn’t just let an innocent die, not when there was anything I could do to save him.”

“And yet, you couldn’t.”

“No, I couldn’t,” Prue said, licking her lips and blinking away the sheen of tears that had appeared in her eyes. Death’s gaze weighed on her, so she forced herself to return it once more. She took a long, shuddering breath.

“Why?”

Death was quiet, watching Prue’s throat work as she tried to form her next words. “You said that I . . . I was supposed to be next after Inspector Davidson. I was supposed to die in that mausoleum with him. So why is it, months later, that I’m still alive?”

Death hummed noncommittally and drew away from Prue, leaning back against the bench and looking out to the front, following the flight of a butterfly a short distance off.

“Do you know how I became Death, Prue?” he said after minutes of nothing but the murmur of insects filling the air between them. Prue, who had been watching as a dragonfly caught and ate the butterfly, jerked her head in Death’s direction.

“But you’re Death. You just are."

Death’s lips quirked almost into a smile over the fact that Prue had remembered their earlier conversation.

“True, but tell me: why would Death appear as a human when death existed long before your ancestors left the oceans?”

“To keep trendy? I imagine that primordial ooze isn’t exactly ‘in.’”

“Funny,” Death said with a relaxed, almost satisfied expression as he took in the cheeky curl of her grin. “I think you would be surprised to find that I was actually born in this past century. Granted, far earlier than you were, but sixty or seventy years between us is not much when compared to all of time.”

Prue’s eyebrows disappeared behind her bangs, but she didn’t say anything, instead waving her hand at Death to go on.

“I’m not being entirely accurate with my age, I suppose. I technically am ageless, immortal, and beyond space and time, but this incarnation of me? He was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in the first half of the twentieth century.”

Prue raised a hand to her forehead and said, “Okay, so I’m not even going to try to figure out how that works. Some sort of metaphysics that I should know but don’t because I wasn’t raised as a witch?”

Death nodded. Seeing that Prue had no plans to speak again, he then continued, “During life I was an . . . uninvolved man. Eyes straight ahead, stay in my lane, so to speak. Most humans fall at least somewhere on the cosmic scales of good and evil, usually only marginally, but the matter stands. Me? I was staunchly neutral, so neutral that I didn’t even register in the greater scheme of all things.”

“Well, you’re certainly making your impression now, Mr. Angel of Death,” Prue said wryly, though this time Death didn’t respond to her attempt at humor.

“You had to help Inspector Davidson despite the futility of your actions. You can claim otherwise, but you’d only be fooling yourself. As a Charmed One, you are an essential force of good and are compelled to help the innocent. In the struggle between good and evil, you can make a true difference in good’s favor.”

“But that’s not really free will, is it?” Prue asked while she picked at her cuticles. She wished she could deny it, but, well, she couldn’t. Why else would she have confronted the ice cream man as a child when no normal kid would? Or devoted her life to saving innocents, when before all she’d wanted was to become successful in her work and maybe one day get married and raise a family?

“No, it’s not. And it’s not fair. But, well . . .” Death briefly met Prue’s stare, then looked away.

“In this modern world, neutrality is lauded. Mortals extol the neutrality of a person or nation.” Death’s face twisted. “They’ve grown complacent.”

“Complacent?”

“Yes,” Death said with a curt nod. “They sit back and pat themselves on the back for doing nothing, and meanwhile evil is allowed its way in the world.”

Prue made a thoughtful noise in the back of her throat. “You were neutral. You’re still neutral. You’re Death, after all. So why are you criticizing people for wanting to mind their own business? If I hadn’t become a witch, I probably would have done the same.”

It was a thought that brought her some shame, if Prue were to admit it to anyone but herself and Death. Thinking about her life now and how she couldn’t stand by and do nothing, even if her actions were futile, it made the her of the past seem petty.

“Neutrality is evil in that it allows evil to have its way, Prue. I was alive during a time of great evil. Maybe as an individual mortal I could not have done much, but others could have. Entire nations could have extended their aid and welcomed the suffering. Instead? Ships carrying refugees were turned away, returning to deliver their cargo to death. People watched as their neighbors were hauled off to never return. Witnesses, indifferent bureaucrats, and people just doing their jobs allowed these things to happen. Worse, many were glad for and benefited from it.”

Hesitantly, Prue reached out to Death this time and gently folded her hands over one of his. His hand, warm and rough under her own, flexed at her touch but did not withdraw. She glanced down at their hands and uneasily wondered where the impulse had come from.

“As Death, I have observed the entire gamut of the cruelty the world inflicts on those who inhabit it. Abattoirs, war, genocide. Smaller, more individual acts of violence too, such as murder, and incidents that are merely circumstance but no less awful. I was alive for some of this.” A tremor went through the hand Prue held. “Do you know, Prue, that you are the first person to see me without my revealing myself first?”

Prue shook her head, not surprised even though she didn’t know why, out of everyone and all the times she ran into scenes of death, that it had happened to her and then.

“It was a shock to me, considering that the living are not supposed to be able to see me. Did you cast a spell that allowed you so?” Death asked.

“No. I didn’t even know there was an Angel of Death until after I first saw you. I kind of thought I was going crazy when nobody else could see you, to be honest.”

Death nodded. “That is what I thought. You see, Prue, I was not prone to fanciful thoughts as a man. I was merely a mortal, after all, and one who lived for nothing in particular. But you seeing me? It’s preposterous, there is nothing to back this up, but . . . I believe it to have been destined.”

“What, another thing out of our control? Just what I needed.” Prue huffed and threw her head back, watching the leaves rustle overhead. The canopy was too thick to see through, but she knew that beyond it was a hard blue sky with a few wispy clouds scudding their way across.

“Did you not want to meet me?” Death asked.

Prue blinked. With a snort, she said, “No offense, but I don’t think that anybody _wants_ to meet you! Not that I really regret it, other than having to see Inspector Davidson die in front of my eyes and not do anything about it. Thanks for the extra serving of nightmares there, by the way, it’s not like I needed my beauty sleep anyway.”

“Sorry?”

“You’re not much for jokes, are you? Nevermind. So, back to the whole ‘destined’ thing, why do you think that?”

“Well, meeting you was the first chance I ever really had to make a choice. I’m Death, I’m not supposed to make decisions, I just reap according to my list. But you confronted me, and forced me to parley with you. You were supposed to die because of that spell you cast, because you made a choice and you ended up on my list.”

“Which is absolute.”

“Yes. Even though you did not interfere with your innocent’s death, I should still have taken you; your death would have been labeled as a mysterious occurrence, something over which the doctors and police would fret for a while before writing it off as another of life’s unexplainable circumstances.”

“Why am I alive, then? Why didn't you take me?”

“Prue, you’re good. You’re a force for good. Your life has meaning, has impacted countless people beyond the innocents you’ve aided. I saw that, and it made me want to do good. By sparing you even for this little time between our last meeting and this one, you’ve advanced the side of good decades ahead of evil.”

“In other words, you giving me just this much time allowed you to do good. But isn’t that against the rules?”

“Certainly. However, I’m Death; who is to stop me?”

“I’m going to die soon anyway, though, right? So can I know when you plan to let me die for good?”

“No, but I’d advise you to start putting your affairs into order.”

“Already on it. My sisters think it’s morbid of me, working on a will when I’m only thirty–and making them do the same–but there’s too much danger in our lives not to be thinking of the worst-case scenario. Regardless, I wish I could pretend otherwise. Phoebe graduated college not even a year ago, you know? She’s so optimistic about the future, and now that she’s finally started getting her life together, I feel the same way about it for her.” Prue’s voice began breaking, but she didn’t stop speaking, “And I’m going to miss that, and I won’t ever be able to tell her how proud I’ll be of her future accomplishments. Piper either.”

A hand slowly approached Prue’s face, the thumb swiping gently underneath an eye as Death brushed away the tear that had fallen there. Pulling his hand back, Death didn’t look at it as he rubbed it off on his jacket. “Foreknowledge can be a burden.”

“True, but I’m the organized sort, so having a warning isn’t the worst thing. I definitely have stuff to talk about with Phoebe now, though.”

“Are you going to tell her and your other sister about this?”

“Definitely not! I don’t want to spoil the time we have left, or have them get hurt trying to prevent my death.” Prue met Death’s stolid gaze. “It’s inevitable, after all.”

As Death stared into Prue’s eyes, a strong gust rushed overhead, parting the leaves and allowing the sunlight to fall unimpeded onto them. He was struck by the color revealed in those eyes, an unplaceable steel like the ocean on the shores of which they had first met. He knew all the languages of the world and others beside, but he had no word for that color. The thought occurred to him then that he would never be satisfied until he finally found the word.

“After all this, your life,” Death waved his hand, “is over, would you be interested in accompanying me?”

“You . . . why?”

“You don’t strike me as the type who will be content lounging around in the afterlife forever. Might as well keep me company until you’re ready.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“Just until your sisters exit life, then?”

“Is that even allowed?”

“You would be a spirit still, like your departed ancestors. Without magic summoning you, though, you’d remain imperceptible to most beings.”

“I see. Well . . . as much as it’d be nice to see Mom and Grams and Andy again, I think you’re right; waiting for my sisters to join me–hopefully for many decades–sounds like a pain. I mean, what does one even do in the afterlife?” Prue cocked her head to the side.

A corner of Death’s lips twitched upward into a lopsided smile. “You have to wait and discover that for yourself.”

“Boo, come on, just a hint?” Death shook his head. “Fine, but if I’m palling around with you, I expect to hear stories about your life, not to mention what you’ve seen since taking up this gig. I bet you know things that historians could only dream about!”

“Enough tales to last for our partnership, I imagine,” Death said and freed the hand that Prue still held from her own. He stood and then helped her up from the bench. “Until then, Prue, rest assured knowing that your memory will be a blessing.”

“Not dead yet, but thanks.”

Prue watched as Death disappeared in a wisp of shadowy energy. She remained standing there for a few moments longer, her mind swarming with everything that Death had told her, before the tinny ring of her cellphone sounded. Prue rummaged through her purse and pulled the phone out.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Prue, it’s Piper. I was wondering, since you’re already out and about, if you could pick up some milk before heading home? Phoebe drank the rest of it–ugh, right out of the carton!–and I’m too busy prepping for dinner to go out and get it myself. I’m not going to ask her to borrow the car and get some if you can.”

Prue smiled. “Sure thing. Want me to pick up a second so that Phoebe has one to herself to drink from?”

“No point, she’d just drink out of both of them.”

“Alright then. I’ll see you and Phoebe soon." Prue paused, and hurried to say before Piper could hang up, "You know something, I’m looking forward to us all finally getting the chance to just sit together and have a nice meal at home.”

“Really?” Though she couldn’t see Piper’s expression, her pleased surprise carried clearly through the phone to Prue, who just smiled wider.

“Yes, really; it feels like, between your club, Phoebe’s boyfriend, and everything else going on in life, we barely get to be together anymore. That is, just us. I kind of miss it.”

“I get what you mean. Me too, Prue.”

“If we can drag Phoebe away from Cole more than this once, we should make this a regular thing." Prue's grip tightened around the phone. The plastic creaked under the pressure until she forced her fingers to relax. "Okay, I’m going to pick up the milk now, I’ll be back soon.”

“Bye.”

“Bye, love you.” Prue ended the call and stuffed her phone away. Straightening out her clothes and breathing out, she emerged from the shade.


End file.
